CATaLOG: RFID cat tracking

Like many pet owners, [Pete] was curious about his little furry friend’s habits while he was gone. He decided to build an RFID tracking system to monitor their positions. This data would then be available on the web. An Arduino handles the communication of the data, both to twitter and his personal cat tracking site. We were a bit surprised to see that the only data transmitted on the final project was whether the cat was inside or out. We’d like to see a heat map of the cat’s activity in the house.

I know Pete a little bit – been to the pub with him a couple of times – so I know how this works… the RFID tags are completely standard ones that are hooked up on their collars. There are readers on the cat flap and at their food area. And I think the cats’ names come courtesy of his girlfriend =)

He’s currently making an absurdly complete home-brew system. I look forward to tasting the results!

clint, those sub-dermal tags would probably work fine. you just need to make sure that the reader gets very close to the area where the tag is implanted – so it’ll only really work in a cat flap or similar situation, and you might get some failure-to-reads if the cat comes in at an unusual angle.

We used to use subdermal PIT tags to track fish passage that were practically indistinguishable from the pet tags of today, and they are very reliable provided that the fish are able to go through the loop of the reader. Wanding them was much less dependable.

I totally need an RFID for my cat, she is an indoor cat, ragdoll, she got out during a party last summer and was gone for six weeks, we are stunned that we got her back and only because my name and phone number was on her collar. i am worried about this summer as she is going to want to go out and may get out by accident. any suggesions? i need a “find my cat” app, like find my iphone